


Long Way Up When You Hit the Ground

by Midnight_Masquerade



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Background!Henry, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jo!Centric, Missing Scene, Post-Canon, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:13:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3272990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnight_Masquerade/pseuds/Midnight_Masquerade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Less than a year". It's factual, accurate, and it ignores so much. Everything it's taken for Jo to get this far and all the work she has still to do. There's an awful lot about the year following Sean's death that can't be deduced from just a glance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Way Up When You Hit the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Inconsequential spoilers for episodes 1-12 (the time frame of the story includes them but doesn't bring up any details). Jo/Henry friendship, but could be read as pre-ship if you come at it from the right angle. Written for the tumblr prompt: "I really want to read a fic about Jo's husband's death, that explores how she coped in the hours/days/weeks following."
> 
> Reviews and concrit always welcome.

The call comes 10 minutes after she walks through the front door. She hears the words “heart attack” and “dead on arrival” and “very sorry” and then the phone is slipping out of her grasp and she is sinking down onto the couch as her life ruptures around her.

A treadmill. All the criminals and thugs that he had come face to face with, all the death threats he had gotten through the mail... a goddamn _treadmill_.

Although her eyes are dry she cannot see the room she sits in. She reaches down to the phone by her feet and firmly presses _End Call_.

 

 **Weeks: 0  
** **Days: 0  
** **Hours: 4**

By the time she comes back to herself darkness has fallen and she realises she needs to pee. When she rises, the world seems to tilt and shift unnaturally, as if someone had switched off the stabilisers.

The bathroom light is harsh and stings her eyes, and she isn't adjusted enough to stop blinking it away until she is washing her hands. That's when she spots his razor sitting on the back of the sink, still peppered with water droplets and the blade dulled by use. She stares at it blankly. Then she switches the water off, dries her hands, and retreats into the embrace of darkness.

She knows nothing about whether she sleeps or not, the only thing she's sure of is that she doesn't move again until dawn.

 

 **Weeks: 0  
** **Days: 0  
** **Hours: 10.5**

Lt. Roark had insisted she take some time off. As she sits curled at one end of their – of _her_ – sofa, staring sightlessly at the television, Jo cannot fathom why anyone thought it would be a good idea.

 _Tick tock._ She's certain the clock on the wall behind her was never this loud. _Tick tock_. It's doing it deliberately, she thinks. It's mocking her. _Tick tock._

It's not even been a day since the phone call. _Tick tock_. It's been hundreds of years. _Tick tock_. It's been less than a second. _Tick tock._ It's still last weekend, and he's just stepped out to grab another beer. _Tick tock._

The TV fills the room with light and sound that washes over and around her. The clock still mocks her. _Tick tock_. She’s too tired to care. Everything that comes near fades into a humming static and rolls away, leaving her anchorless and drifting. _Tick tock_.

 

 **Weeks: 0  
** **Days: 0  
** **Hours: 11**

The clock comes down from the wall and flies across the room. The case splinters and the hands fly off, scattering across the carpet. Then Jo is sinking back onto the couch, the brief spike of energy as over as soon as it had arrived.

With the ticking gone she finally has what she wants - silence.

It isn't any better.

 

 **Weeks: 0  
** **Days: 1  
** **Hours: 1**

“With respect, Lieutenant, I – I'd like to return to work.”

“Detective, I don't think-”

“Please, Sir, if you don't want me out in the field then give me paperwork, just... I can't be at home.”

“...Very well, Jo. Come in tomorrow and I'll see what I can do.”

 

 **Weeks: 0  
** **Days: 1  
** **Hours: 13**

Detective Hanson is up from his chair the second she walks into the precinct, the move so spring-loaded that there's no way he wasn't waiting for her. Jo squares her shoulders as he approaches and tries for a smile. From the look on his face she doesn't quite succeed.

“Martinez.” he says, “Roark told me you were coming in. Are you okay? No, course you're not, stupid...” he swipes a hand across his brow and tries again, “It's good to have you back.”

“Thank you, Hanson.” she replies, not bringing up the fact that she was missing for all of one day.

“Look, uh...” he shifts awkwardly, “if there's anything any of us can, you know, do or-”

She stops him with a hand on his arm, “I appreciate it, but it – it's fine, really.” She's not sure she can quite stomach the department's well-meant but fumbling brand of concern right now.

Hanson frowns, unconvinced, but he recognises the brush-off and retreats back to his desk. Jo crosses the room and slides into her own chair, grabbing the first sheet from the large stack of paperwork already set out for her. She tunes her focus into the activity around her and the scratch of her pen on page, letting the sounds fill her head, leaving no room for her thoughts.

  


**Weeks: 0  
** **Days: 3  
** **Hours: 3**

She's one of the last detectives left in the precinct by the time Lt. Roark stills her pen with one hand and insists that she go home. She tries to object, but an unexpected yawn kills all of her arguments, and her feet are dragging by the time she's unlocking her front door.

She hesitates in the hallway. Two days of hunching over her desk and nights curled up on the couch have left her with a throbbing in her back and neck, and she longs for their ( _her_ ) deep double bed. But she hasn't been in the bedroom since the phone call and everything is still...

For several minutes she wavers in indecision. There is no part of her that doesn't ache.

Eventually, she kicks off her shoes and trudges up the stairs. The light remains off, and in the cloak of darkness everything is stolen away into silhouette and shadow. Jo is free to crawl under the covers, her back to the empty stretch of mattress next to her. She turns her attention to the rumble of cars passing by outside, and prepares to wait out the long, dark hours.

 

 **Weeks: 1  
** **Days: 0  
** **Hours: 6**

A steaming mug of coffee is waiting on her desk when she arrives that morning. She glances around to find that everyone is (rather pointedly) staring at their computer screens or deep in conversation.

She sits down and pulls the drink towards her. Then, Picking up her pen, she turns her attention to her work. One week. She hadn't expected any of them to remember.

 

 **Weeks: 2  
** **Days: 2  
** **Hours: 5**

She's out canvassing with Hanson when she sees him.

It's a bright day and the sun is in her eyes as she turns away from the green, peeling front door and flips her notebook closed. He's entering the park on the other side of the street. She squints just to be sure. It _is_ him – the brown hair and the polished shoes and the easy, measured gait, and before she can stop to think she's off the front step and hurrying after him, heart thudding, his name already forming on her tongue-

“Woah, Martinez!” Her thoughts are shattered by the blare of a car horn. Stunned, it takes her a few seconds to register Hanson's wide eyes and the violent cursing from the vehicle that had just swerved to avoid her. She turns around again to see that the commotion had attracted the attention of the man across the street. I wasn't him after all. Of course it wasn't.

She pulls her arm out of Hanson's grip, face burning with humiliation and anger and...

“What was that?” Hanson asks, frowning at her.

“Sorry.” she says, “Got distracted.” She pockets her notebook, ignoring Hanson's concerned frown, and walks off down the street, her heels stabbing into the sidewalk.

 

 **Weeks: 4  
** **Days: 4  
** **Hours: 8**

An old colleague of his drops by the precinct on some case she's not involved in, and she does her best to avoid him. He'll want to _talk_ , and she knows exactly where that conversation will end up. She almost succeeds, and she's let her guard down by late afternoon and isn't paying attention when she heads back to her station. A photograph lies on Detective Ruiz's desk, one she'd seen being passed around earlier on. She picks it up and studies it closely.

A fancy dress Christmas party. A bunch of tipsy lawyers in stupid outfits. She vaguely remembers it happening, now that she's looking at it. A hazy dream of a memory.

He is standing to the left of the group.

The photo might have made it back onto the desk or it might have hit the floor, she doesn't know and she doesn't care. She hurries out of the bullpen, hair falling in front of her face and pace just too quick to be inconspicuous. She ignores the worried glances and the calls of her name and flees for the ladies bathroom. She’s barely breathing in her effort to hold what’s left of her composure together for just one more second, just one...

She slams through the door and into the nearest stall, not bothering to check if she is alone. Then she is sliding down onto the cold tiles and the dam finally breaks: sobs rip through her, shaking her entire frame and locking every muscle painfully. She draws her knees up to her chest and slumps sideways against the closed door. The position is probably uncomfortable but she doesn’t feel it. All she can feel is agony – in her stomach and her face and clawing out of her chest and locked around her throat. One hand scrabbles uselessly at the neckline of her top, even though she knows that it won't help anything and won't stop her desperate gasps for air. She's trembling too hard to draw in a breath and the torrents in her eyes cloud her vision completely. Caught so off guard and now so thoroughly defenceless, Jo feels panic creeping up to join the storm of grief. She can do nothing except drop her forehead onto her knees and rock herself back and forth as great lurching sobs rattle her from the inside out as if trying to rend her to pieces. It wouldn't at all surprise her if they succeeded.

Jo’s not sure how long she stays there - sobbing on the floor. This had been coming for so long, the inevitable breaking point, and soon she gives up fighting and just lets the pain gouge into her, tearing away pieces that she only now realises had been hanging by threads ever since the phone call. She is hot and shivery and so empty that she doubts her ability to ever stand again. Except she does, eventually. When she finally has no more tears left to cry and her body is no longer being knocked around she rises unsteadily to her feet and straightens her clothes and listens to make sure the room is empty. Then she exits the stall. What else is there to do?

There is no mascara left around her eyes. Several minutes at the sink clears away the evidence of her stained cheeks but she can do nothing about the puffiness of her face or the redness around her eyes.

She looks to the bathroom door, dreading going back out there. But if she doesn't, eventually they'll come looking for her.

She feels eyes on her all the way back to her desk. She doesn’t look at anyone - scared that one look into her eyes will give her away. It takes almost everything she has not to loose herself again.

 

 **Weeks: 4  
** **Days: 4  
** **Hours: 10**

Lt. Roark calls her into her office with an expression that brokers no argument of any kind. “Go home, detective Martinez. You're still entitled to that leave – take it.”

This time, Jo can't quite find the will to argue.

 

 **Weeks: 4  
** **Days: 6  
** **Hours: 7**

She finds herself awake in the early hours of the morning with an inexplicable need to act. Nothing has been moved in the last month, and all of his stuff is still strewn about the house exactly as he had left it. Her skin crawls: This won't do, she suddenly decides. She grabs the empty boxes from the loft and starts in the bedroom.

She makes it as far as the kitchen. The third time she breaks down - hunched over the counter with the stupid fancy filter coffee machine that he had insisted on using every morning - she suddenly can't remember why she started at all. She's made a mess of the house, and as much as she longs to just fall back into bed, she forces herself to throw everything of his that she can find into the boxes. Then they are hidden away in his office, and the door is closed. It remains closed for a very long time.

 

 **Weeks: 5  
** **Days: 0  
** **Hours: 2**

He'd be irritated if he knew that she was knocking back his $100 scotch like it was cheap lager.

She doesn't care.

 

 **Weeks: 5  
** **Days: 2  
** **Hours: 15**

The phone rings in another room. She rolls towards the wall and pulls the blankets up over her head, and waits for the caller to give up.

 

 **Weeks: 7  
** **Days: 1  
** **Hours: 4**

She's disgusting. The house is disgusting. God, what would he say if he saw it? _Clean environment: clean mind, Jo. How you manage with your desk the way it is is beyond me._

This time it is guilt that pushes her out of bed. She steps into the shower, near-scorching water beating down on her, and scrubs roughly at her hair and skin as if she can rinse the last month away. When she climbs out she doesn't let herself stop for longer than the time it takes her to get dressed – then the entire house needs to be tidied and scrubbed clean and the empty bottles need to be disposed of and the cupboards restocked. She spends the day in a whirl of activity, barely noticing the bitter cold outside in her single-mindedness. By the time night falls the house looks better than it has in a long time and Jo herself looks almost human again.

For once, she actually sleeps through the night.

 

 **Weeks: 7  
** **Days: 4  
** **Hours: 13**

Returning to work feels surprisingly good. She'd cooped herself up for too long; the house and all the memories scattered throughout it had begun to suffocate her. The noise and clutter of other people is almost comforting.

She manages to convince the lieutenant that she's ready to start taking cases again, that having a purpose will be good for her. Hanson gives her a supportive clap on the shoulder when she exits Roark's office, and she almost smiles.

 

 **Weeks: 10  
** **Days: 3  
** **Hours: 9**

The cosy restaurant in China Town is exactly the way they left it – peeling red paint and small, intimate tables and an owner with a loud, barking laugh. The building may not have changed, but she has. The last time she'd walked out of this place, all smiles and laughter and warmth as he'd told her a joke she’d heard a hundred times before, she would never have guessed that she’d return a grief stricken widow. She slides into their usual table and greets the waiter with a forced smile. This place was small, and they'd been regulars, so of course they ask about him. She tells them that he's away on business and orders her food. She can't bring herself to say it, not yet.

It's probably as good as it ever was, but everything tastes like ash on her tongue. The memories come spilling out and crashing over her as she sits in the rickety chair turn everything to muted grey and have her gripping her chopsticks so hard she can barely use them. This place has nothing to offer except good times: laughter, sharing food, teasing each other via the waiters who were always happy to indulge loyal customers.

For weeks all she'd been able to think about was the stupid ridiculous fight they'd had right before... right before his conference. Somehow, this nostalgia is so much worse.

She finishes her food and plasters on a smile when the owner comes out to greet her. She leaves a generous tip, promises to drag her husband along soon, then quickly escapes out into the street, pulling her coat around her as if it can offer her protection from her own mind.

That little place had been theirs, a cranny of New York that kept the good times safe. It's their's, but _they_ don't exist any more.

She doesn't go back there again.

 

**Weeks: 12**   
**Days: 2**   
**Hours: 20**

She's working overtime, and decides that ordering dinner to eat at her desk is the most efficient course of action. It feels kind of nice, to be able to carry on regardless of the incessant, trivial demands of her body.

The next morning she arrives early with breakfast, and a habit is born.

 

**Weeks: 15**   
**Days: 4**   
**Hours: ...5?**

Sean Moore. _Sean Moore._

She can barely remember the last time she said his name aloud. In the beginning just thinking it had felt like being branded, her insides reduced to an ugly, agonising mess. That wasn't them – they used to shout and snap and get irritated with each other, just like everyone else, but when he'd been alive he'd never made her feel this way.

There'd practically been a clock ticking inside her head ever since the phone call, scratching out every second that took her further and further away from her husband. But in the last few weeks, that clock had started to blur and, as far as she was concerned, that meant enough was enough. She wasn't going to spend her life packing him away out of sight and mind just because it made her slightly less uncomfortable to do so.

Sean Moore. His name i- _was_ Sean Moore and he was her husband and she'd loved him, she _still_ loves him, with everything she has. Sean. Sean, Sean, Sean.

She's drunk, and probably shouting a little louder than she should, but she doesn't care. Sean's name feels like barbed wire in her chest but she'd choose it over the aching numbness of those first weeks any day and somewhere in the back of her head this feels good, this feels like progress and _Sean, Sean, Sean_.

 

**Weeks: 20**   
**Days: 1**   
**Hours: ???**

Even at the time, she knows that it's a bad idea. But she's at a bar and she's already drunk away most of the change in her pocket and he smiles so sweetly. He even resembles Sean a little, if she doesn't look too closely.

They go back to her place, and they're both slightly too drunk to bother turning on the lights, but he's warm where he's pressed up against her and he holds her like she is unbreakable, something she hasn't felt in a very long time.

 

**Weeks: 29**   
**Days: 5**

She and Hanson have closed an impressive number of cases in the last month, and Jo feels lighter, finding that she can actually be proud of that. She still eats most meals at her desk, still swings by bars on her way home, occasionally accepts invitations from strangers she meets there (though always at their places now. The guilt she'd felt after that first time wasn't worth repeating.) but she's back on form at work and really, isn't that what matters? Maybe her personal life could take a back seat for a while.That wouldn't be so bad, would it?

All she really knows it that the road she's on feels like it's headed somewhere in the neighbourhood of stability.

 

**Weeks: 36**   
**Days: 6**

“Sorry for your loss, Detective.”

“I'm sorry, I think you're confused, I didn't know any of the victims.”

“No, I meant your husband.”

The simple exchange almost undoes her. Was it really that obvious? She'd been doing well lately, she really had, and the pitying glances from her colleagues had faded away months ago. Yet apparently here she is, with everything still written all over her face.

When the offending ME surfaces as a suspect in her latest case, she's a little more hostile than she needs to be. Of course, later on she realises that Henry Morgan has a habit of picking up on things he shouldn't, and she probably wasn't that obvious after all, but she's still on the back foot for a while afterwards. She'd hoped that she was done feeling so vulnerable.

It had probably been a stupid thought to entertain.

 

**Weeks: 40**   
**Days: 3**

Lt. Joanna Reece gives an impression of authority and calm competence, and Jo decides she'll do a good job of filling Roark's shoes. It isn't really a surprise, then, when she announces that she'd been through Jo's file and already knew about Sean.

She doesn't offer any empty platitudes or impersonal condolences. Instead, she makes a request of Jo, hands her something to grasp onto. _I need you sharp, Detective_. Somehow, the expectation is more helpful than advice could have been, and Jo finds herself warming to her new Lieutenant.

 

**Weeks: 43**   
**Days: 1**

She begins to see a lot of herself in Henry. And, rather more annoyingly, she thinks Henry sees some of himself in _her_. It means that they work well together. It also means that she has to try a lot harder to fool him than she would anyone else.

He's right about her spending most of her time at the precinct, and as much as she may deny it she knows he is. But what else is there for her? Where else can she devote her time? It had been her and Sean, for years, and now it was just her. She'd had her time in the sun, and she'd treasure the memories forever. She had no regrets (all right... very few regrets) but it was done, it was over. That was just how it worked.

 

 **Weeks: 46  
** **Days: 5**

She's more than a little surprised when Henry joins them at the bar that night, and once she's called it quits and is back at home it gets her thinking. She knew a case of Lone Wolf when she saw one, and (beside his room mate, of course) he had seemed a classic example.

She had long been of the opinion that people didn't change. Enough years dealing with repeat offenders knocked that kind of thinking out of you fairly rapidly. But maybe... maybe they could adapt.

Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling as the late hours tick away, she finally admits something to herself: she knew, if she really wanted it, that the sunshine was still out there waiting for her. But after so many months there was an odd kind of comfort in grief. It was familiar. It was easy.

Getting back to herself would _not_ be easy. It would be a long trek and she would probably be up against the feeling that she was betraying Sean somehow, even though she knew that he wouldn't want her to stay this way.

But if Henry, of all people, could take that plunge, then she really didn't have many excuses left.

 

**Weeks: 50**   
**Days: 3**

The Precinct Christmas party was the usual mildly embarrassing affair of drunk cops and terrible music. Jo and Lucas had banded together several weeks ago and somehow managed to wear Henry down until he agreed to show up. Now he was secreted in a corner, grimacing at the cheap alcohol that had been forced on him. Jo snickers, and is about to make her way over to him when Hanson knocks into her, his own drink sloshing dangerously.

“Woah.” he says, and his voice is reassuringly steady, “Sorry.”

Jo grins, “Haven't seen your wife all night.”

“Couldn't get a babysitter. At least, that's her excuse.” he knocks back the rest of his drink and regards her with sombre eyes. “How you doing, Jo?”

Jo lets out a breath. It had only been a few weeks since Sean's old case had turned up in her lap, and the rawness that it had left behind was still clinging to her. Yet on the whole, she'd felt better than she had in a long time, and she isn't lying when she says, “I'm... I'm holding up. Getting back in the saddle, you know?”

“Good.” he nods, and the steady stream of alcohol has loosened Jo up enough that she can appreciate his slightly awkward concern for her. She isn't alone in this, she never has been, but shock and grief come together to make a debilitating combination.

It's been almost 12 months since her life had been torn in half, and Jo feels no shame in having spent the majority of it with her head buried firmly in the sand. Everyone has their coping mechanisms, after all. But, she thinks to herself as she surveys the raucous scene around her, maybe it's time. Time to start taking the advice that she was always giving Henry, not to mention the advice _he_ was always giving _her_.

She leaves the party early, tired of the heat and the noise, and crunches through the light dusting of snow back to her apartment. Once there, she switches all the lights on, clinging to the thought that no matter where she goes she’ll be able to see. She's not sure why the thought is so comforting. After climbing up the stairs, she pauses to compose herself before she opens the door. The door to Sean’s study.

Everything is coated in a layer of dust and boxes occupy every available surface. Jo clambers over them and slides down into the chair, sweeping it clean with the sleeve of her coat. It's strange – sitting in the middle of the cramped room with the bulb that had always flickered no matter what they did with it, she can almost feel him again. Like if she just closes her eyes and leans back he'll appear with a mug of coffee and a hand on her shoulder.

“We had some good times, didn't we?” she murmurs into the silence.

A while later she realises that she's crying again, but it's a different kind of crying. It feels clean. It feels uplifting. It feels like maybe the broken fragments of her that stab her insides and sometimes stop her breathing... maybe they won't be the end of her after all.

 

**Years: 1**

She's clearing up the living room when there's a knock on the door. Frowning, she picks her way into the hall and is surprised to see a Henry-shaped figure on the other side of the frosted glass. Does he...?

“Henry, hi.” she greets him as she opens the door, “What's the occasion?”

“Thought I'd come check on you.” he smiles ruefully. His nose is pink from the cold and his scarf is bundled tighter than normal around his neck.

Jo steps backward and gestures for him to come in. “Um, how did you...?”

“Detective Hanson filled me in after the Aaron Brown case.” he explains. “I think it was an attempt to make me feel guilty for spinning the affair out when I should have let it go.”

Jo's surprised to find herself laughing at that. “Well, you got us a conviction – another one. And I don't think Mike was too broken up about arresting the guy who shot him.”

Henry hums an agreement, and Jo moves into the kitchen to make coffee – mostly out of a need to occupy her hands during the conversation she knows is coming. As Henry himself had once said, tactful silence was not exactly his forte.

He appears in the doorway mere seconds after her. “You look well, Detective.” he says.

She smiles. “Thank you. I – I think I actually am.”

“It's a shock, the first year.” he says gravely, “Even though you know it's coming, even though you're dreading it, the first time you look up and realise a whole year has gone by... it's not easy.”

 _Damn him_ , Jo thinks, flicking her eyes in the direction of the kettle. How can he articulate her feelings to perfectly?

“You know,” she says, “I'll get the story of Abigail out of you eventually.”

His smile is weary, but genuine. “I'm certain. But I didn't come here to talk about _my_ grievances, Jo.”

She concedes as she grabs two mugs out of the cupboard, and manages the keep the conversation light as she finishes making their drinks. Henry seems to sense that she doesn't really want to talk about Sean, and willingly sits with her on her couch while she does her best to educate him on her favourite sports teams.

“I'm afraid none of this is really my area.” he says, eventually, and Jo snorts.

“No kidding. Is that an English thing or is it just a You thing?”

“I'm not sure.” he confesses, “It's been a long time since I was there.”

“Do you miss it?” she asks.

“Sometimes.” His look has gone vacant, as if a thousand different memories are playing themselves out behind his eyes. “But there are so many times here that are very dear to me.”

“We keep moving forward.”

“Precisely.”

She leans sideways and rests her head on his shoulder, his arm sliding comfortably around her. “Thanks for coming tonight.”

“No one should be alone at time like this.” he says simply, and Jo smiles.

People were always saying that time healed all wounds. She's fairly certain that that is – at best – a huge oversimplification, and from what little Henry has let slip he seems to feel the same. But a full year after one of the worst things that ever happened to her, she's reached the tentative conclusion that distance _can_ provide a little perspective. Maybe one day, she'd hear her husband's name and her first feeling would be one of fondness, not pain. Maybe one day she and Henry would be able to talk about their losses without the averted glances and stuttering voices. Maybe, one day.

Right here and now, though, they had each other, not to mention Lucas and Abe and Hanson and everyone else willing to rally around them when needed. The blue skies were out there, and for the first time in a long time, Jo feels like they might be reachable after all.

 


End file.
